Financial literacy remains a problem among young South Africans. A shortage of platforms that offer financial insights whilst proactively empowering and educating them about personal financial issues is not helping.

A growing number of millennials, therefore, struggle to meet their financial goals as they are not equipped with the right knowledge to make sound financial decisions. Other reasons include inconvenient channels to access financial products, complex product language, poor affordability and inadequate accessibility to financial advisors and planners.

Akiba Digital, a South African FinTech company, aims to change this. They have come up with a gamified savings mobile app that allows users to save towards their lifestyle goals and get rewarded for it.

A second solution is a yet-to-be-launched web-based financial literacy platform that repurposes existing content written by financial service providers. For corporate clients, this tool acts as a financial habits research tool among current and future clients, and for millennials, it serves as a financial education distribution platform.

“We want to be the movers and shakers in making financial wellbeing as sexy as selfies,” says Tebogo Mokwena, co-founder of Akiba. “For that, we’ve taken the mission to empower millennials through interactive access to financial literacy with the right personalised financial tools. We believe that once people have a better understanding of their finances, they will be better equipped to make informed and effective decisions.”